Improvement in car-roofs



' E. U. BENEDICTL CAR-ROMS.

' No. 195,254. ?aten-ted se t.1a,1877.

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' fyZjfi a N. PETERS, FHOTO-LITHOGRAPNER, WASKlNGTQN, q C

UNITED STATES rron.

ELIAS U. BENEDICT, OF AURORA, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF OF HISRIGHT TO EDWARD T. PBINDLE, OF SAME PLACE. I

IMPROVEMENT IN CAR-ROOFS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. l95,'251 datedSeptember 18, 1877; application filed July 31, 1877. v

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, ELIAS U. BENEDICT, of thecity of Aurora, county of Kane, and in the State of Illinois, haveinvented certain new and useful Improi'ements in Roofs for Railroad-Oarsand. other structures; and I do hereby declare that the following is afull, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being bad to theaccompanying drawing, making a part of this specification, in which Thedrawing is a perspective view of my invention as it appears upon anordinary box or house railroad-car, ready for use.

Letters of like name and kind refer to like parts in the figure.

It is well known that a great number of difi'erent kinds of roofs are inuse upon railroad-cars and other structures, and they are constructedentirely or in part of metal, wood, canvas, rubber, 850., the design ofwhich is, of course, to protect the contents within from damage by rain;but, in consequence of the great weight of many of them, also thetorsional strain to which railroad-cars especially are subjected, allhave been found to be more 'or less objectionable, and none, except thecommon double board roof, is now in general use, and even thisabsolutely fails to produce the desired result.

To remove these objections, and also the ditticulties heretoforeexperienced, and to produce a light, cheap, and absolutely water-tightand durable roof, is the object of my invention; and it consists in asingle course of boards vertically grooved on their upper faces, neartheir edges, combined with battens, similarly grooved on their undersides or faces, and with rubber tongues placed in such grooves andtightened up by the battens, as hereinafter more fully set forth.

In the annexed drawing, A and A represent a single course of boards,laid and fastened upon the carlins or rafters of an ordinary box orhouse railroad-car. They are preferably made of one-inch stuff, dressed,and fastened in the usual manner to the carlins. Narrow strips of boardsor battens B B are placed centrally over the space between each twoboards A and A, to which latter the battens B and B are firmly fastened,preferably by means of wood-screws. Grooves G and O are previously cutin the boards Aand A, and similar ones in the battens B and B, in such amanner as that when the latter are laid upon and fastened to the formerthe grooves O and 0, both in the boards A and A and in the battens B andB, will coincide in character, as well as in position, one with theother.

The grooves O and G are provided with tongues of any suitable elastic orresilient material, but preferably of rubber, and are to be made ofsufficient width and thickness, so that when the battens B and B arefirmly fastened down to and upon the boards A and A the tongues placedwithin the grooves U and C will nearly or quite fill the latter bycompression.

The several parts being constructed and put together as shown anddescribed, it Will be readily seen that the result is an absolutelywater-tight roof. I prefer to paint both boards and battens before andafter they are laid and fastened. If, by reason of accident orotherwise, any of the boards A and A should become split or injured soas to cause leakage, it is only necessary to remove two of the battensto substitute a new board for the injured one.

I do not by any means confine or limit myself to the shape of thetongues and grooves as shown in the drawing, because it is obvious thata tongue and groove made round, square, octagonal, or any other shape,put in similarly, would effectually preven t the passage of waterthrough between the boards A and A. Neither do I confine or limit myselfto the use of rubber for the tongue, for it is evident that a variety ofother impermeable but compressible substances would answer the purpose;but I prefer rubber because of its elasticity, lightness, and cheapness,and because the tongues are so readily made, simply by cutting them offfrom sheet rubber.

One of the advantages of employingindiarubber, or equivalent elastic andimpervious material, is, that when the battens or boards shrink underthe action of the sun or weather, or in seasoning, the grooves willtighten upon the rubber, and make the joint tighter and closer still;but when metal strips have been used it has been found necessary to makethe 'to allow for such shrinkage.

grooves wider than the thickness of the strips, This is liable to twoobjectionable results, viz: that until such such shrinkage actuallytakes place the joint is not a perfect one; and when it does take placean excessive shrinkage tends to split the batten or the board, as themetal strip cannot yield in obedience to this contraction of the wood.Besides this, a warping of the wood tends to give a permanent bend tothe metal strip, and a bend in the metal tends to warp and split thewood. I employ no bent pieces of metal connecting the groove of oneboard with that of the other board, and hence do not weaken the boardsby cutting away any of their material other than sufiicient for therubber strips, and the grooves in the battens can be made preciselysimilar to those in the boards, and by the same tool.

I am aware that the joints of roofs have been covered by metallic stripshaving downwardly-curved edges entering grooves in the boards, suchstrips being used in conjunction with metal tongues entering the samegrooves in the boards; and I am also aware that paperboard or vulcanizedfiber has been placed in horizontal grooves made in the adjacent edgesof roof-boards. These, therefore, I disclaim.

What I claim is In combination, the single course of boards, grooved asshown and described, the battens B, similarly grooved, and the verticalindiarubber elastic tongues, placed within such grooves, and compressedand tightened to fill the grooves by the act of fastening the battens toplace.

ELIAS U. BENEDICT.

Witnesses:

E. T. PRINDLE, O. H. ADAMS.

